On Wed, 2009-04-15 at 00:10 -0400, Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams wrote:
> I don't think there's been a kernel.i386 for a long time. Perhaps you
> were thinking of kernel-headers.i386.
Ah, you're right - I wasn't reading carefully. The notes should then
read as follows:
===Package rebuild===
All .i386 and .i486 packages have been rebuilt as .i586 (Pentium class).
These designations represent the ''minimum'' supported architecture
version; Fedora 11 is ''optimized'' for Pentium 4-compatible and later
processors. Fedora has never officially supported pre-Pentium
architectures, and dropping any remaining backwards compatibility with
these chips further improves performance and allows for code
simplification (for example in glibc).
===.i686 kernel changes===
The kernel.i686 RPM is no longer produced. The following kernels are
available instead:
* kernel.i586, for those requiring compatibility with a Pentium-class
architecture or who do not have a PAE and NX capable processor.
* kernel-PAE.i686, which requires a PAE and NX capable processor with
Pentium PRO-class or later architecture.
After analyzing the differences between the i585 and i686 architectures,
dropping the non-PAE i686 kernel is not expected to have a negative
performance impact for those required to use the kernel.i586 package.
The kernel-PAE.i686 RPM has additional capabilities, such as support for
ExecShield security and the ability to address up to 64GB of RAM (the
standard kernel can address only 4GB). Note that the architecture
designations in RPM names represent the ''minimum'' supported
architecture version; Fedora 11 is ''optimized'' for Pentium
4-compatible and later processors.
Anaconda (the recommended install method) will automatically choose the
best kernel for your hardware.
If you are using the "yum upgrade" method (not recommended), you may
receive the kernel.i586 package even if your processor would support the
kernel-PAE.i686 package. To determine this, run the command:
:grep 'flags.* pae' /proc/cpuinfo | grep -wq nx && echo 'kernel-PAE'
If you see "kernel-PAE" in the output, then your CPU is capable of using
this package, and you can manually "yum install kernel-PAE".